HG RX-78-4 Gundam G04

Here’s my #gundamber build for @miniaturite’s Gundam competition, the somewhat recently released Gundam Unit 4. I had been holding off on this build due to the lack of decals, but I finally stumbled upon some by Flaming Snow on eBay and was finally able to acquire them.

I’d also like to thank The Hangar Bay for supporting Saint-ism! Joel has been shipping me P-Bandai kits like this G04 all throughout this pandemic and I get my orders soon after they’re released in Japan. To celebrate Black Friday and Cyber Monday they’re offering 15% off in-stock items at their store (and he’s got plenty!) with code SAINTISM15 until December 1st 12:00JST.

Painting

White– Mr Color 306 Grey FS base coat, followed by Mr Color GX Cool White for highlight effect.

Blue – Mr Color 5 Blue + bit of purple. White added for highlights

Yellow – Mr Color Orange base coat, Starter white technique, followed by coat of Orange Yellow (100%). White added for highlights

Dark Grey – Gaianotes Neutral Grey V + bit of black base coat, followed by Neutral Grey IV for highlights. Base coat colour used to post-shade/blend.

Red – Mr Color Shine Red

Internals – Gaianotes Star Bright Iron, alternate with Gaianotes Star Bright Duralumin for joints

This kit requires a laundry list of detail painting. The sticker sheet is deceptively small and doesn’t really reflect the amount of work needed for complete colour accuracy.

The thrusters on the side of the legs need to be painted yellow
There’s a section on the shins which need to be painted yellow/grey
At the back of the legs there’s a thruster that needs to be yellow
On the side of the legs there are some panels which are blue
The panels on the rear skirts need to be painted grey
The pipe on the mega beam launcher needs to be painted red
The beam rifle is molded entirely in grey and the scope needs to be painted yellow
The shield is molded ENTIRELY IN WHITE, and the blue parts need to be painted/masked
The thrusters on the backpack come molded in black when they are yellow
There’s some detail on the blue part of the arms that should be grey
The thrusters on the back of the shoulders should be yellow
Part of the beam saber handle should be white
Some vents on the chest should be yellow
The vulcans on the head are grey
The V on the crotch

Also while not strictly required I painted these details to match the MG:

There’s some small “thrusters” on the fuel tank holders which I painted blue
Parts of the mega launchers I detailed with German Grey

Painting the shield made me pretty nervous, I first painted the whole front blue and then used the included stickers for masking when painting in the white. The result turned out pretty good, albeit a bit messy on certain parts.

In terms of seams, there’s the usual ones on the beam rifle and on the head. For the head you can cut the peg at the back of B1-16 and just slot the rest of the face into the head after fixing the seam and painting. There’s also the blue part on the mega launcher which is a seam, I “fixed” this one by chopping the front part off and fixing that part of the seam, the rest of it I kind of etched the seam a bit to make it into a panel line.

There’s also a seam on the fuel tanks which are easily fixed, and one on the battery pack (which I left as is).

Finally, various vents were detailed using an enamel wash sprayed at high pressure.